THE CHALLENGE OF FOOD SECURITY

Government should make its presence felt in agriculture

In recent years, Nigeria has consistently been featured on the negative side of different global human development reports. From life expectancy which has drastically reduced for the average citizen to shrinking real income of most families to unemployment that is scandalously high, Nigeria fares badly on most of these indicators. But perhaps the most pressing challenge today is the growing food insecurity in the country. While the recent declaration of a national emergency on the issue by President Bola Tinubu is a step in the right direction, it should go beyond mere sloganeering. There is an urgent need for concrete measures to raise the abysmal level of food production in Nigeria.  

  Successive governments have always initiated projects towards promoting agriculture, but no tangible results were achieved due principally to structural weaknesses, mismanagement, and undue politicisation. We recall that in 2022, then President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated the National Food Security Council comprising six governors drawn from six geographical locations of the country, and ministers and security agents. The council, which Buhari also chaired, was mandated to “develop new programmes and projects that will protect and indeed, create more jobs in farming, fisheries, animal husbandry and forestry.”

  The second National Economic Plan (1970-74) of Yakubu Gowon made agriculture a priority. Unfortunately, that effort failed to achieve the desired results. Between 1975 and 1979, General Olusegun Obasanjo also initiated a gargantuan agricultural scheme popularly called Operation Feed the Nation (OFN). The scheme failed to tackle the country’s food crisis. In the Second Republic that followed, President Shehu Shagari introduced the Green Revolution Programme with a view to increasing domestic food production. That programme as well as several others that came after, also ended up as colossal failure.

The current administration must learn from those failures. While declaring open the 6th African Regional Conference on Irrigation and Drainage last week, Tinubu spoke to the challenges in the sector while pledging his administration’s readiness to tackle them. He reaffirmed the same commitment in Katsina State a few days later. “We have dedicated ourselves to food security. We must invest in mechanisation and water management. The old style of agriculture is gone,” the president said while highlighting his plan on food security. “The Bank of Agriculture is being revitalised. When resuscitated, the bank will make funds available for large, medium and small-scale farming.”

According to statistics from the Federal Ministry of Budget and National Planning, over 31.8 million Nigerians are suffering from acute food insecurity compounded with malnutrition among women and children. Yet, the costs of disregarding this issue in human and economic terms cannot be quantified, especially when child mortalities in Nigeria have malnutrition as largely the underlying factor.

Already, there are concerns over the shrinking farming seasons caused by climate change. “Our fertile lands are turning to dust. Irrigation is now a necessity, not a luxury,” Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum, said last week while warning that unpredictable rainfall patterns were creating uncertainty among farmers. “Innovation must not be seen as a privilege of the few; we must empower women and youth who are at the frontline of agriculture.”

 To change the narrative in the sector, the government must work with the private sector to develop schemes for providing credit facilities to farmers to invest in mechanised agriculture. Fortunately, there are concerned citizens and civic groups helping to chart a pathway. They only need the support of relevant authorities. A country as richly endowed as Nigeria should not be suffering from the scourge of food scarcity.